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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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THE 



Higher Education a Public Duty 



AN ADDRESS 

DELIVBRtD AT 

THE COMMENCEMENT 

OP 

The College of the City of New York 

.TXJ^^E 31st, ISSS. 
BY 

J. EDWARD SIMMONS, LL.D.. 

Prk!^7dent ot" thk Koarh of Trusteb*". 



PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 



NEW YORK: 

HALL OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION, 

No. 146 GRAND STREET. 

LS88, 



1 



THE 



Higher Education a Public Duty, 



AN ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AT 

THE COMMENCEMENT 

OP 

The College ofthe Cityof NewYork. 

JTJISrE 31st, 18S8. 



/^ 



J. EDWARD SIMMONS, LL.D., 

President of the Board of Trustees. 







NEW YORK: 

HALL OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION, 

No. 146 GRAND STREET. 

1888. 







PRESS OF J. J. LITTLE &. CO., 
NOS. ID TO 20 ASTOR PLACE, NEW YORK. 



Gentlemen of the Graduating Class : 

I WISH the resources of our language could fur- 
nish me some new form of cordial salutation with 
which to address you on the occasion which has 
brought us within these walls — an occasion which 
can only be regarded by each of you personally as 
a most important event, because it marks the end- 
ing of your college course and tells you that the 
happy period of youth is past and the sober realities 
of manhood have begun. You have received j^our 
academical degrees and j^ou are about to go forth 
from the halls of your Alma Mater to enter upon 
the future career which shall give you your crown 
or 3^our condemnation. 

In the name of the Board of Trustees, and in mv 
own name, I extend to vou heartfelt cong;ratulations. 
I congratulate you not because your college work 
is ended, but because your life work is successfully 
begun ; not because you have finished your studies, 
but because you have laid a strong foundation on 



which to build a loftier and nobler superstructure ; 
not because your Alma Mater has bestowed on 
you the highest honors in her gift, but because by 
your achievements those honors have been fairly 
won. For five years under her guidance you have 
toiled and struggled ; patiently you have striven 
to furnish your minds with practical knowledge, to 
adorn them with all the graces that the serious 
study of literature and science can impart. Intel- 
lectual children when you entered college, you 
have been developed and trained into intellectual 
men. You have now reached the plane where you 
can form true conceptions of manly principles and 
noble conduct. During your college course it 
has been your constant and honest endeavor to fit 
yourselves for the life contest before you, and here, 
to-day, in the presence of this vast assemblage, 
in the presence of parents and kindred, surrounded 
by your friends and the citizens of this great 
metropolis, your Alma Mater bears witness to 
the success of your endeavors ; with pride and 
ceremony she declares that you are prepared to go 
forth from her walls to achieve honor and success 
not alone for yourselves, but for the institution 
which honors you. You merit our applause, and 
we gladly bestow the laurel upon you as we ofi'er 
you our congratulations. 

These congratulations are all the warmer because 



you graduate from the College of the City of 
New York, the People's College, which is the logi- 
cal outgrowth and the crown of the great municipal 
s^'stem of public education over which I have the 
honor to preside. As students and graduates of 
the City College, you are in an especial manner the 
wards of this metropolis. It has watched over 
3^our welfare ; it has spared neither pains nor ex- 
pense to provide for you a liberal education in the 
fullest sense of the word. This education has been 
bestowed on you not as a benefaction, but because 
the City thought it her right and her duty so to do. 
You have taken advantage of her enlightened 
generosity ; you have profited by the opportunities 
afforded jou. Freely the doors of this college were 
opened to all, rich or poor, knowing no distinction 
except that of merit, no passport except that of 
worth. Priceless as is the gift in itself, its value 
has been enhanced by removing from it everything 
that could humble the most sensitive, and b}^ invest- 
ing it with everything that could attract the most 
worthy. Wisely and well has the work been done : 
to-day it is our pride that it has produced a hun- 
dredfold ; to-day gives the promise that it will pro- 
duce a thousandfold. To-day begins for you the 
day of repayment. 

You are intelligent young men, and you must 
understand that communities do not act at random. 



6 



If the City of New York lavishes yearly a liberal 
endowment on this college, it must be clone for wise 
and worthy ends. For you who have profited by the 
City's munificence, it should be the first and most 
sacred duty to further those ends and to realize 
those aims, and I believe I can do nothing better 
this evening than to state what these ends are, and 
to counsel with you upon your duty. 

What, then, are the aims of the city in extend- 
ing to you the priceless advantages of a higher 
education? I have already said it is not offered 
you as a charity ; b}^ which I mean that it is not 
offered to you merely for your own personal ad- 
vantage. The ends must be nobler and loftier, 
based on high public considerations of prospective 
service to the City, the State and the Nation. But 
in offering free higher education to her sons, do 
these considerations generally prevail ? Are these 
objects achieved ? In other words, has the City 
or the State the right to provide a higher educa- 
tion at the public expense ? 

When in 1847 the citizens of New York, b}^ a 
vote of 19,000 to 3,000, decided to found the Free 
Academy, now the College of the City of New 
York, it is evident that they were convinced of 
their right to provide for higher education out of 
the public resources. The great majority in favor 
of the proposal submitted to them proves this. 



Why, indeed, should they have doubted their right 
in the premises? All history justified them; for 
the principle that the State has the right to sup- 
port higher education is as old as organized higher 
education itself. Trace the records of colleges 
and universities as far as history will permit ; 
everywhere and in all ages their success, and even 
their very existence has depended upon the assist- 
ance and support of the State. In our own country-, 
in Europe, in modern times, during the middle 
ages and in the centuries beyond them, long before 
common schools maintained at the public expense 
were thought of, higher education was the foster- 
child of the State. The first university of the world 
was the far-famed Museum of Alexandria. Who 
founded, who endowed, who supported it? The 
State, the kings of Egypt. By means of the State- 
supported Museum the Ptolemies made Alexan- 
dria the pivot of the world of learning, the home 
of science, art and literature, the Queen of the 
East. Weak and bad as were many of the Ptol- 
emies, constantly assailed by revolution, no one 
denied the right and the wisdom of expending the 
State moneys on the State university. Indeed, if 
they had any claim to respect admitted by all 
civilized men, it was because of the foundation and 
support of the great Alexandrian university. 
At Athens, in her palmy days, the State did 



8 



little for higher education, or for education in any 
form. The taxes were lavished on the theatres 
and wasted on the professional juryman. Univer- 
sity there was none, nor any really systematic higher 
education. Each sophist, each philosopher imagined 
that he was a university in himself He handled 
every conceivable subject, and treated it as the 
Muse inspired him. 

These philosophical teachers were the irregulars, 
the guerillas of education. Who will deny that 
notwithstanding these disadvantages the}^ accom- 
plished much ? Learning was then in its youth. 
But when it became necessary that system should 
take the place of genius and that method should 
aid inspiration, Athens would have failed intel- 
lectually, as she did politically^ had not the State 
come to her assistance. The great and wise Anto- 
nine emperors saw her needs ; they substituted 
system in education for caprice, and State support 
for haphazard existence. Thenceforth, throughout 
the length and breadth of the vast Roman Empire, 
whether at Eome, Lyons or Athens in the West, 
or at Constantinople, Antioch or Alexandria in the 
East, higher education became the policy of the 
State ; to cherish and strengthen it was felt to be 
among the foremost duties of the emperor ; to neg- 
lect it was to cripple the empire ; for the power of 
Rome was founded largely on her superior civili- 



zatioii, won by the superior knowledge of her 



governors. 



What name is more glorious in the annals of the 
middle ages than that of the great Frankish empe- 
ror, Charlemagne — great as a warrior, great as a 
conqueror, great as a statesman — yet that which 
gives him the best title to our admiration is his 
patronage of all the forms of higher education. His 
quick eye discovered that nothing would so raise 
his Franks among surrounding people, nothing give 
them such lasting prominence and power, as supe- 
rior culture. Unfortunately his plans were not 
permitted to come to maturity ; but the wisest of 
his countrymen appreciated fully the services ren- 
dered by him to the empire as the promoter of 
learning. To-da}", as of old, Charlemagne is hon- 
ored as highly because he was the friend of Alcuin 
as because he was the first of mediaeval paladins 
and the conqueror of Wi-dukind. 

A review of all that the royal Edwards and 
Henrys have done for higher culture in England 
might furnish the theme for more than one eloquent 
discourse. But who of you that has read the his- 
tory of Oxford and Cambridge is not familiar with 
the many instances of royal favors heaped upon the 
two great universities of England ? Even in the 
distant days of the middle ages, long before sci- 
ence had begun the gigantic strides that almost 



10 



bewilder the modern imagination, English kings 
and princes had no surer passport to the affection 
and the veneration of their subjects than the pro- 
tection and promotion of higher education. 

The history of the progress of higher education 
on the Continent of Europe is parallel with the 
development of civilization. I might rehearse for 
you the privileges and endowments granted by the 
French kings to the University of Paris ; I might 
tell you how in Grermany princes and dukes and 
bishops, amid the applause of their subjects, set 
aside the revenues of whole towns and districts to 
establish and maintain their high schools. I might 
picture to you the enlightened generosity of the 
great mediaeval cities of Italy — of Venice, of Genoa, 
of Bologna, of Padua, of Florence — that rivalled one 
another not only in commerce and political power, 
but in the protection of learning. I might take you 
to the home of our frugal Dutch forefathers and bid 
you wonder at the open-handed liberality with 
which they supported the universities of Leyden 
and Utrecht. But I can do no more than allude 
to them as I pass. 

Nor can I dwell, as the subject tempts me to do, 
on the enlightened, affectionate care bestowed by 
the stern Pilgrims of New England on their high 
schools and their colleges. Much does Harvard owe 
to the generosity of John Harvard, and Yale to 



11 



the patronage of Governor Yale ; but had not the 
public spirit of the citizens of Massachusetts and 
Connecticut fostered the infanc}^ and youth ot 
those now great institutions, who can assure us 
that they would not have withered away prema- 
turely for lack of support?. Princeton College is 
the College of New Jersey, and its official name 
embodies its obligations to State assistance. In 
our own city, Columbia College, now rapidl}^ de- 
veloping into a university, was established as 
King's College, and has been built up on the 
solid foundations of State and city endowments. 
Throughout the Eastern States there sprang up 
gradually nimierous high schools, academies and 
colleges partly or wholly maintained by public 
moneys, institutions of the higher learning on 
which the people justly prided themselves. If, in 
1847, the people of New York fixed their eyes on 
the countries of Europe, they beheld everywhere 
universities, colleges and gymnasia, under the 
fostering care of States and cities ; everywhere 
the people contributed liberally to the promotion 
of advanced education. Why then should not 
New York, the metropolis of the New World, the 
queen of American commerce, the centre of all 
honorable activity, provide for her sons the free 
higher education offered by so many less-favored 
cities to their children? Self-interest, pride, patri- 



12 



otism, a generous zeal for what the world has ever 
praised in other communities, combined to urge 
upon the citizens of New York their duty to pro- 
vide for their children the highest educational 
advantages. Who would question for one moment 
the right of the people to direct the expenditure 
of the public funds in whatsoever channel they 
might deem best for the progress and welfare of 
the city ? The wisest of men have always felt con- 
strained to follow in the footsteps of predecessors 
who have acted with the highest degree of intel- 
ligence and judgment. If nations and cities*are 
obligated by the same rule, surely the people of 
New York had the right to establish the Free 
Academv, and in view of its success, to erect it 
into the City College. But our age is an age of 
progress. The simple dictum of the sages does not 
weigh as much as it did in days gone by. We are 
not content to do what our forefathers regarded as 
good and wise — we must know the reason why ; 
nay, more, we ask why what was right and wise in 
the past is also right and wise in our own time. 
Wh}^, then, have nations and men always ap- 
proved the State support of higher education and 
admired its patrons? Why, in particular, should 
we Americans of the nineteenth centur}^ look upon 
it with favor ? Is State-endowed higher education 
based on equity and justice ? Is it founded on the 



13 



principles of the Constitution and the Declaration 
of Independence? I venture to think that it is, 
and shall briefly lay before you my reasons. 

That knowledge is power is the demonstration 
of experience. 

He does not always prevail who has the great- 
est strength, but he who makes the best use of his 
strength ; resources alone do not achieve success, 
but wisdom in their use does. Etruria was a great 
power when Rome was a little village, but Etruria 
forgot the cunning that raised her to prominence, 
whilst E-ome learned lo use with skill and cer- 
tainty the developing strength of the youthful 
giant. Etruria passed under the yoke, — Rome be- 
came the mistress of the world. For centuries the 
great German stock wasted its strength amidst the 
forests and swamps of northeastern Europe. The 
Germans were as fearless, as vigorous, as athletic 
then as when they defeated the legions of Yarns, or 
as when they built up kingdom after kingdom on 
the ruins of Imperial Rome. Why did generations 
pass away inglorious and unprofitable ? Because 
the Germans knew not how to use the strength that 
dwelt within them. From those whom they con- 
quered afterwards the German barbarians learned 
the secret of their strength, and also learned the 
secret of its use. Why was mediaeval Europe 
ruled by bishops and monks? Because they were 



u 



the scholars, the learned men of the middle ages. 
For whom did the wise Charlemagne found the 
palace schools ? For his nobles and priests, for 
those who were to aid him and his descendants to 
rule the Empire. Where during the middle ages, 
where in the times of More and Wolsey, where in 
the age of Raleigh and Bacon, where in the days 
of D 'Israeli and Gladstone, has England sought 
her guides and her rulers ? At Oxford and Cam- 
bridge. Where did G-ermany find her statesmen, 
where the thousands of officers who, leaving their 
homes, led her victorious legions into the very 
heart of France ? Where, but at her gymnasia and 
universities. Where in the Western Hemisphere 
is the centre of power, the land of destinj^ ? In 
the land of intelligence, in the land of free schools 
and free high schools, in the land which amidst its 
early struggles and perils never forgot to cultivate 
higher education. 

Before the discovery of the Hudson River the 
Spaniards had for more than a century established 
their power in Florida, in Mexico and South 
America, but the}^ have left no record of a school 
worthy of the name. Their power was used to 
crush the people and not to elevate, and without 
a literature, with but few institutions of learning, 
their condition to-da}^ intellectuall}" is but little 
better than when they first subdued the natives. 



15 



The contrast is an impressive example of the 
power of popular culture as a factor in national 
progress. 

In the Old World and the New, in ancient times 
and in modern, among merchants, warriors and 
statesmen, knowledge has always been power. 
Hence, individuals and peoples, monarchs, oli- 
garchs and democrats, have always proclaimed the 
far-reaching importance of superior education ; 
hence, the}^ have lavished taxes and treasures on 
schools, colleges and universities. 

' I have briefly suggested why the wisest leaders 
of nations and the greatest statesmen have every- 
where and at all times been the patrons of higher 
learning. But in America, above all, higher edu- 
cation has superior claims to state aid and patron- 
age. Should you ask me why, I would answer 
not only because, being the youngest in the family 
of great nations, we should j)reeminently seek to 
develop our resources ; not only because starting 
centuries after civilized Europe had become vener- 
able with the ages, America has not had time to 
lay the massive foundations of strongly organized 
and richly endowed high schools, but chiefly be- 
cause our political institutions demand it. The 
people of the United States are proud that their 
political system is a democracy. Among us, before 
the law, all men are equal. We know no serfs, no 



16 



barons and no kings, or rather, as was said of the 
Eoman Senate, ''We are all kings," proud of our 
rights, proud of our independence, proud of our 
obedience to the law. We feel that when we 
obey the law we rule. Our government is not 
only a government of the people and for the peo- 
ple — a benevolent monarch}- may be that — but 
above all "a government hy the people." It is a 
government by the people because the people elect 
their rulers and law-makers. But it is in a higher 
sense a government by the people because every 
citizen, rich or poor, high or humble, has a right 
to be a ruler. We know of no Helots and no 
Spartans, no plebeians permitted to vote and 
patricians privileged to be voted for — no active 
and no passive suffrage. Such is the theory of 
the American Government, such the cherished 
ideal of all true Americans. But he who desires 
the end must use the means. If our ideal of gov- 
ernment is to be something besides an ideal — if 
in practice, as far as human means can secure the 
end, our public offices are to be really open to 
all Americans, we must, as far as in us lies, place 
within their reach the means by which they may 
fit themselves for these positions, and the oppor- 
tunity to assert their prerogatives. They may 
not all avail themselves of the advantages offered 
to them ; but I repeat, if the people are really 



17 



to govern, the State must place at their disposal 
the means to insure their rights. 

If, now, we go back to the teachings of history, 
you will remember that power is the heritage of 
knowledge, that high place and distinction natu- 
rally go to the best educated. In other times and 
other lands higher education was reserved for the 
privileged classes, but among us the law knows no 
distinction, countenances no privilege. What is 
plainer, therefore? If higher education be the key 
to political influence, if we must not permit the 
rise of a privileged class, then higher education (I 
mean, of course, non-professional education) must 
be placed, as far as possible, within the reach of all. 
Surely no one who reads the lessons of history with 
intelligent insight, no one who realizes fully the 
character of our government, can fail to see that 
higher education for all insures greater equality for 
all, and that it is a most effective means for perpet- 
uating the government of the people hy the people. 

Here, perhaps, an objection may be interposed. 
Some of the greatest Americans, it will be said, 
rose to eminence without the aid of a scholarly ed- 
ucation. Take, as a signal instance, the great, the 
noble, the heroic Lincoln. Did not he attain the 
highest honor in the gift of his countrymen ? Did 
he not give liberty to millions of his fellow-men? 

Did he not save our country in the throes of civil 
3 



18 



war ? And yet to Abraham Lincoln fortune de- 
nied the boon even of a thorough common-school 
education. No one reveres more sincerely than I 
do the memory of the great, the genial man, who 
in the days of our trial stood between our country 
and destruction. No one admires more warmly his 
large-hearted patriotism, his clear-sighted states- 
manship, his heroic devotion ; and I admire him all 
the more because he conquered for himself immor- 
tality, without the ordinary advantages enjoyed by 
other men. But Lincoln was a Titan in the storm 
whose waves were blood, and whose thunder was 
an earthquake that shook the continent. At times 
Providence raises upextraordinary men to achieve 
extraordinary deeds. When France lay prostrate 
and helpless, her armies vanquished and her king a 
wandering fugitive, up rose the simple maiden of 
Domremy, Joan of Arc, to smite the enemies of her 
country and to restore her king. Do we thence 
infer that France should look for a Maid of Orleans 
whenever she is sore pressed by foes ? No more 
may we look for a Washington in every country 
surveyor, or a Lincoln in every rail-splitter. It is, 
it has been, and it always will be true, that by far 
the greater number of our statesmen, our diplo- 
mats and our orators have been men who to natu- 
ral ability united the advantage of thorough train- 
ing and of the highest culture. Hamilton, the 



n 



Adamses, Webster, Calhoun, Randolph, Jefferson, 
Madison, Clinton and Everett, to mention only a 
few of the names illustrious in American his- 
tory, were college-trained men. Grant, Sherman, 
Sheridan, Meade, Hancock, Thomas, Hooker, 
McClellan, and most of the great generals of the 
late war, were educated at West Point. The 
majority of our public men to-day, and the most 
•distinguished among them, for the most part, are 
men of thorough scholarly education. The annals 
of our country, if carefully studied and correctly 
interpreted, demonstrate the maxim that knowl- 
edge is power, and that the best legislation is the 
work of those best qualified to legislate. The igno- 
rant and half trained are politically doomed to be 
hewers of wood and drawers of water, while the 
man blessed above his fellows with the highest 
culture has the surest passport to political prefer- 
ment and usefulness. 

But after all, the office-holders are but a fraction 
compared with the public at large. They are merely 
the elected or selected servants of their fellow- 
citizens. In the theory of the American Common- 
wealth, the policy of the executive, the enactments 
of legislatures, the decisions of judges, are but ex- 
pressions of the will of the people. No matter 
who conceives the policy, no matter who devises 
the law or frames the decisions, it is from the peo- 



20 



pie that they derive their binding force. The peo- 
ple decide all questions raised by the needs of the 
time, or by the contests of their statesmen. They 
decide them not blindly or by chance, not accord- 
ing to the dictates of favor, of caprice or self- 
interest, but according to their intrinsic merit. 
With the loyal American citizen everything must 
yield to his country's welfare. The ideal Ameri- 
can should be above all an upright, disinterested 
patriot, an intelligent lover of his country. It is 
his right and his duty to decide the most weighty 
and momentous questions ; questions of home and 
foreign policy ; questions of peace and war ; ques- 
tions of finance and political economy ; questions 
of social right or wrong. Yesterday it was the 
problem of State rights, to-day it is the problem 
of the surplus, to-morrow it may be some problem 
in international law on which he must pronounce 
judgment. How abstruse and how complicated 
these questions are is apparent. Even the most 
honest and astute statesmen often disagree in their 
solutions ; and yet the wisest statesmen and the 
most learned scholars have no more voice in their 
decision than the plainest citizen. They each cast 
one vote. But in our representative sj^stera one 
man in Congress speaks for over seventy thousand 
constituents, and one senator from New York 
speaks for more than two millions of people. 



21 



In the face of these facts who can doubt that the 
weal or woe of the nation to a great extent depends 
on the intelligence of its citizens ? Their judgments 
must be trained, and their minds enlightened, to 
distinguish argument from sophistry, false from 
true principles, right from, wrong, and the honest 
from the treacherous counsellor. Unless the citi- 
zen be guided by sound principles, correct reason- 
ing, clear discernment and wisdom, our political 
system will be doomed to destruction at the hands 
of the designing self-seeker or the ignorant dema- 
o'oo'ue. Americans have alwavs seen and felt that 
intelligence and wisdom are the corner-stones of the 
commonwealth. Hence from the foundation of the 
Republic our schools have been the solicitude and 
pride of the people. Every State and every town- 
ship has deemed it a duty to establish common 
schools. They were founded, not as institutions of 
charity, not to help the poor to the education for 
which they could not pay ; they were founded as 
the indispensable means of preparing the child for 
future citizenship, as a policy of insurance against 
danger to the commonwealth. The inspired wis- 
dom which framed the Federal Constitution did not 
fail the people when they sought the fittest means 
to maintain the Republic, conserve its liberty and 
promote its welfare. 

But, we may well ask, is a common school educa- 



22 



tion, is the acquisition of " the three R's ^'* an ade- 
quate preparation of the embryo citizen for his 
future duties ? Will the knowledge of reading, 
writing and arithmetic really qualify him to be a 
safe and discriminating judge of the grave problems 
that he must one day help to decide ? Who will 
be bold enough to assert it? No doubt the boy who 
has learned to read, write and cipher has in his 
hands the key to boundless knowledge. To him it 
is given to unlock the treasures of literature and 
science ; he is free to study the thoughts of the 
wisest, but also of the most foolish ; he may become 

*The original of this often-quoted expression was contained in a 
bulletin or handbill issued by a Mr. James Williams, who kept a 
small store not far from Lancaster, Eng., v/hich reads as follows : 

" James Williams, parish clerk, saxtone, town crier, and bell- 
man, makes and sells all sorts of haberdasheries, groceries, &c., 
likewise hair and wigs drest and cut on the shortest notice. N. B. 
I keeps an evening scool, where I teach at humble rates reading, 
riting and rithmetic, and singing, N.B. — I play the hooboy, 
occasionally, if wanted. N. B. — My shop is next door, w^here I 
bleed, draw teeth, and shoo horses, witli the greatest scil. N. B. 
Children tauglit to dance, if agreeable, at 6d. per week, by me, J. 
Williams, who buy and sell old iron, and coats — boots and shoes 
cleaned and mended. N. B. — A hat and pr. of stockensto be cud- 
gelled for, the best in 5, on Shrof Tushday. For particulars inquire 
within, or at the horse shoe and bell, near the churcli, on t'other 
side the way. N. B. — Look over the dore for the sign of the 3 
pidgeons. N. B. — I sells good ayle, and sometimes cyder. Lodg- 
ings for single men. N. B, — I teaches jografy, algebry, and them 
outlandish Kind of things. A ball on Wednesdays and Fridays." — 
History of Advertising., by Henry Sampson, (p. 513.) London. 



23 



the disciple of the sage, or the follower of some Uto- 
pian dreamer ; he may sit at the feet of a Solomon, 
or at those of a Don Quixote. Books, magazines, 
newpapers, will be daily thrust into his hands and 
will daih" propound to him the most conflicting 
views on the most varied questions. Siren voices 
will allure him into opposite camps. He will be 
appealed to by Conservatives and Radicals, by 
Democrats and Republicans, by Rationalists and 
State-rights men, by Free-traders and Protection- 
ists, by Uni-metallists, Bi-metallists and Green- 
backers, by Prohibitionists and High-license advo- 
cates, by Communists, Socialists and Anarchists, 
by the apostles of Anti-poverty, the prophets of 
Free Land and the martvrs of Woman-sufifraoe. All 
this medley of doctrine, blown together from the 
four winds of heaven, will be spread before him 
like a French menu before a rustic. 

The heaviest viands are often labelled with the 
most promising names, the most pernicious doctrines 
set forth in the most attractive language. Dema- 
gogues will seek to lead him astray by addressing 
his self-interest, enthusiastic cranks to blind him by 
flattering his passion and prejudice. Will anyone 
seriousl}' maintain that elementarj^ training alone 
will fit the youthful citizen to thread his way 
through the mazes of this labyrinth ? To me he 
appears like a child to whom is given the key to a 



24 



thickly-planted garden, where perchance next to 
the nutritious vegetable grows the poisonous weed. 
What careful, prudent mother would permit her 
child to enter such a garden, trusting that intuition 
or chance would guide him in his choice ? Would 
she not first warn him of the peril that often lurks 
beneath the finest form ? Would she not first teach 
him to discern the healthful from the noxious 
plant ? And think you the State, which is the mother 
of us all, should be less wise and less prudent ? 
Should not the Republic, before bidding the new- 
made citizen select between ideas and systems that 
may make or mar her, that may make or mar 
him, see to it that he be prepared to make a wise 
selection ? That his common sense be strengthened, 
that his judgment be matured and his reason be 
well trained ? That he be carefully taught to sift 
the right from the wrong, the true from the false, 
the teachings of wisdom from the plausible figments 
of enthusiasm and deceit? 

In my view there can be but one answer to these 
questions. Can an elementary education alone ac- 
complish these purposes ? I answer, JSfo, It simply 
opens the mind as the eyelids open to let the light 
fall on the retina, but does not make sound thinkers 
and good reasoners. This demands a longer and 
more thorough training than can be given to the 
boy that strives to master the spelling-book and 



25 



the arithmetic. To make sound thinkers and good 
reasoners demands the training required by the 
curriculum of the college or the university. There 
each faculty of the student's mind, his observation, 
his memory, his analytical and reasoning powers, 
his common sense, his discernment of right and 
wrong, of honor and shams, of truth and falsehood, 
will be bidden to unfold and grow to a masculine 
strength. There he will be trained, as far as 
human agency can train him, to discharge wisely 
and honorably the responsible duties of the Ameri- 
can citizen. 

If it could be done, it would be for the best 
interest of a democratic commonwealth that all 
her citizens should enjoy the highest general educa- 
tion possible. They cannot be too well prepared 
to exercise the momentous duties that will devolve 
upon them ; they cannot be too wise, too intelli- 
gent, too well trained. Our opponent, of course, is 
ready to tell us : " You cannot give such an educa- 
tion to all the citizens. The college graduate must 
ever be in a hopeless minority." Granted. But 
because you cannot do all that is desirable, will 
you therefore attempt nothing ? Because you can- 
not become a millionaire, will you decline to earn 
your living ? Because you cannot become a Ham- 
ilton or a Pitt, will you therefore remain an igno- 
ramus? Surely if the government is to be the 



26 



people's government, it is far better to have a 
thousand well-trained and intelligent citizens in the 
million than a hundred. Each of them may become 
a powerful factor in the cause of good government, 
each of them be an enlightener of his fellow-citi- 
zens, an unmasker of shams, of rogues and of dem- 
agogues. A hundred wise men will effect more 
than ten. Assuredly, if higher education be free, 
many a youth will be enabled to secure its advan- 
tages who otherwise must be content with a com- 
mon school training. 

An examination of the rolls of the City College, 
I am informed, makes it probable that far more 
than half of its graduates w^ould, had the college 
never existed, have been forced to abandon the 
hope of a scholarly education. What is true 
of our own institution is no doubt equally true 
of all other State-supported high schools and col- 
leges. Each contributes a contingent of men, who, 
thanks to the benefits of free higher education, will 
not only be able to guide themselves intelligently 
in deciding the intricate problems of patriotic poli- 
tics, but will spread the light they themselves pos- 
sess and guide the less wisely directed footsteps 
of the uneducated. Many of these missionaries of 
future power, perhaps the most of them, will come 
from the masses of the poor and the discontented, 
the men most inclined to take up with visionary 



27 



theories, — theories destructive of all order, peace 
and patriotism, — theories that just now seem to in- 
fect vast masses of men in the New World as well 
as in the Old. These people will not listen to coun- 
sel, though ever so wise, proffered by those whom 
they call capitalists. Groverned by their preju- 
dices, everything coming to them from such a source 
is to be repudiated. But to the sons of the sons of 
labor, the graduates of the free college, to whom 
higher education has given the power to see and 
the ability to expound the truth, who, being of the 
same social origin, are their superior in wisdom and 
learning, they will listen, if they will listen to any. 
Thus wall the poor that cannot, or will not, avail 
themselves of the State's generosity, share in its 
advantages, and the State be doubly repaid for its 
outla}'. 

The benefit of a system of public education is to 
be found in the greater perfection of its methods, 
the homogeneous character of its instruction, the 
untrammelled freedom of association among all 
classes, and the liberalizing of all the sentiments of 
our free institutions among the children of the poor. 
We call our public schools free schools because there 
are no monthly or quarterly bills to give uneasiness 
or disgrace for their non-payment. But the people 
who use them have already paid their bills under 
the laws of a political economy that never displaj^ed 



28 



a nobler purpose or a more beneficent aim than to 
do all that may be done to elevate, enlighten and 
guide into honorable and useful citizenship the chil- 
dren of the commonwealth. 

The more I study the question of free higher edu- 
cation the more I am convinced of its wisdom. 
Stamped with the approval of the past, it is indis- 
pensable to the present. It is a source of power 
and of wealth ; it is a bulwark of the State against 
the destructive doctrine of misguided men ; it is a 
torch that pours the light of sound principle far and 
wide among the sovereign people ; it is a force that 
substitutes enlightened patriotism for blind self-in- 
terest and unconscious slavery to the self-seeking 
demagogue ; it is the only means to secure practi- 
cally for the son of toil a share not onl}^ in the ac- 
tive but also in the passive suffrage ; the only means 
to realize " the government of the people hy the 
people." 

The Old World presents no spectacle like that 
of our own country to-day. Under the Colonial 
condition, slow in development, burdened by the 
maladministration of a remote government, it had 
the stunted growth of a dwarfish plant. But by 
the utterances of one immortal instrument which 
declared " that all men are created equal," which 
asserted the right of the governed to participate 
in the government, a new impetus was given to 



29 



human progress and the illustrious pageant of 
the ages is passing before us, where sixt}^ millions 
of people dazzle the eyes of the world with its 
science, its literature, its inventions, and its power, 
and the electric wires, invented by an American, 
which tremble under the wildest tempests of ocean, 
or barn on mountain peaks, while the whirlwind is 
sweeping over countless towns and cities, translate 
throuo-h all lano;uao:es the maornificent march of the 
Republic into the grandest epic of time. 

And now. Young Grcntlemen, I have presented to 
you, imperfectly I admit, some of the considera- 
tions which make me so earnest in my advocacy of 
the College you represent. Permit me, in drawing to 
a close, to call your attention to one or two import- 
ant contrasts. I have spoken of the academies, the 
schools and universities of the Old World, of the 
philosophers of Greece and Rome, and of the cul- 
ture of the classic cities and empires of the past. 
We have the legacy of their arts, their literature, 
and their intellectual achievements. But the mag- 
nificence of their art and the splendor of their 
achievements were but intellectual conquests, 
while their morality was only theoretical and their 
spiritual life was lost in the darkness of the dead. 
The wretched native of the western coast of the 
Desert Continent made a fetich of clay from the 
muddy banks of the Congo, while the intellectual 



30 



and wondrous Egyptian worshipped the reptiles 
and the material objects around him, and died em- 
balmed in the hope of a resurrection after three 
thousand years, which to-day would have made us 
the companions of the Ptolemies and the Pharaohs 
of bygone ages. The more intellectual and re- 
fined Athenian, with exquisite art and consummate 
skill, fashioned his Jupiter or Apollo or Yenus 
with surpassing beauty — but it was only the ma- 
terialized expression of a materialistic life. It 
was but the intellectualizing of our being. It was 
barren of all that could give vitality to the spiritual 
nature of man. We live in a better day. 

The Pilgrims who sailed from Plymouth on the 
Mayflower, and landed at the rock which they 
distinguished by the name of the English city they 
had left, threw to the breeze a pennon on whicli 
was inscribed the legend, " God with us.'^ It 
was a fitting sequence that one hundred and fifty- 
six years afterward the Congress that laid the 
foundation of our Union appealed " to the Supreme 
Judge of the world for the rectitude of their in- 
tentions," and "with a firm reliance on the pro- 
tection of Divine Providence," committed to the 
future the destinies of the new republic. 

I have made allusion to " The Three R's " in 
my remarks on elementary education. The term 
so often quoted as a literary monogram originated 



31 



with a certain Mr. James Williams, near Lancaster, 
England, who combined a singular medley of 
manual pursuits with his pedagogic labors. We 
may well be amused at the grotesque combination 
of his literary and industrial toil, but in his day 
long past he was doubtless a useful and genial 
helper of his fellow men. If he did nothing else, 
he has bequeathed to the world of letters a pseu- 
donvm which has become immortal, and which will 
be remembered while the English language shall 
be used among men. I desire to give you, if such 
a mnemonic of this occasion be in order, 

The Three Es of the Class of '88. 

Reliance — Rectitude — Responsibility. 

Reliance — An unalterable purpose and resolve 
that with all the powers of a sound and well 
trained mind and heart you will labor with undis- 
mayed courage in your chosen sphere of life to 
overcome difficulties, achieve success, and secure 
the crown of victory. 

Rectitude — Add to the power of a cultured mind 
the superiority of a blameless life in all your re- 
lations with your fellow-men. Let the Apollo Bel- 
videre of your life be a lofty example of moral 
and intellectual character, radiant with the grace 
and beauty of a faultless name. 



32 



Eesponsibility — The high privileges you have 
enjoyed and the power you have acquired makes 
you debtors to those who have been less favored 
as well as to the State which has endowed you 
with its gifts. Gold and gems are weighed in 
scale beams of greater or less magnitude, but the 
moral and intellectual forces are imponderable, 
yet of infinite value. You are now invested with 
the responsibility for their use. 

Let me urge you, Young Men, to arm yourselves 
for the conflict of the future ! Put on the breast- 
plate, keep the polished blade by your side, be 
prepared for the duties of the coming years, and 
Heaven grant that you may be found honored 
among the victors to the end ! 



